


Book Club

by ayyyy (RosaAquafire)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, M/M, Quadrant Confusion, extremely brief mention of suicide mission, fictional character inception, fictional characters discussing fictional characters, how deep can the fictional character layers go??, romance novels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 18:42:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7185599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosaAquafire/pseuds/ayyyy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat really didn't expect Rose to actually READ the trashy romance novel he'd been using to explain quadrant vacillation. He also didn't expect Rose to... really, really like it, or for them to start exchanging books and discussing them. Karkat-centric fic for Karkat day!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Book Club

**Author's Note:**

> I really, really love Rose and Karkat! I don't see nearly enough fic examining the relationship between Karkat|Rose and/or Dave|Kanaya. A couple throwaway lines in one of my other fics where Karkat and Rose are arguing about a love triangle got me thinking about this concept. So here. Have an experimental DaveKat and Rosemary fic written entirely through the lens of Rose and Karkat, without any appearances by Dave or Kanaya.

Karkat is choking on half a dozen different things that he really doesn't want to think about when he takes the transportalizer into the common room. He feels like every time he breathes in, he's shoring up the damn he's built inside his own thinkpan, and every time he breathes out, it threatens to break. Every thump out of his bloodpusher is accompanied by an identical thump in his brainplate as all the stampeding thoughts struggle to get out. His hands are so tightly fisted that his claws are digging candy-red furrows into his palms.

Needless to say, when he glances up from the mesmerizing view of his own feet and spots Rose sitting on the couch, he's eager to pounce on the presented distraction.

She has her legs pulled up beneath her, her lashes fanned out on her cheeks, and she has a book spread in her lap. She has that composed, elegant air about her that she always seems to be affecting. Sophistication looks natural on Kanaya; it looks posed on Rose.

In one of those little flukes of human genetics, her status as Dave's sister makes it so that they have the exact same button nose, round and delicate and turned up slightly at the tip. That, in turn, makes Karkat really want to yell at her. He's almost excited when she shifts and he sees the familiar cover of her book and the target presents itself.

"Wow. Holy shit. Are you actually reading that?"

She doesn't look up. She turns the page. "Hello, Karkat," she says in that too-patient, too-solicitous tone that always says _I'm better than you._

He rolls his eyes. "Yes, okay, hello, Rose. I thought that book had just fucking vanished into thin air. Are you telling me you've actually been reading it?"

She finally deigns to actually meet his eyes. She folds down the edge of a page. He wants to jump in and tell her to stop wrecking his personal private property, but he manages to bite his tongue because he's pretty sure she'd throw the book right off the back of the meteor if he let on that it bugged him. "You're the one who recommended it, Karkat," she says. She closes the book and her eyes gleam mischievously. She thinks she's so fucking smart. "Are you rescinding your endorsement?"

Karkat scoffs. "Fuck, no! I'm actually pretty fucking sure that I said right from the start that it was trashy and an inferior sampling of Alternian romantic literature!"

She strokes the cover with her fingers. It's an absent sort of gesture, and Karkat furrows his brow a bit as he watches. He does that, too. He likes the feeling of a book against his skin. He's confided it in Kanaya. Did Kanaya turn around and tell Rose? Is Rose making _fun_ of him, right now? He opens his mouth and breathes in to start really giving it to her, but to his surprise, she's already talking.

"But you prescribed it _specifically_ for the purpose of humans to understand the concept of quadrant vacillation," she's pointing out, which, to be fair, he had.

"To Dave!" Karkat reminds her, "Not to you!" His brow furrows even deeper than before. "Can you even fucking read Alternian?"

"Of course I can," Rose replies with a little smile. "Kanaya taught me. She wanted me to read some of her favourite drinker novels." Just like that, as if it's so easy. As if learning an alien language in a single year -- if that! -- is no big accomplishment. Rose Lalonde is the most infuriatingly smug person Karkat Vantas has ever met.

"Why would you even want to know about quadrant vacillation?" Karkat mutters, jamming his hands into the sidepouches of his jeans. "I thought that you and Kanaya were firmly in the land of the flushed."

Rose makes a small noise in the back of her throat. "Well." She says the word like she's chosen it carefully and prepared it before offering it to him. "Our relationship is slightly more complicated than that. I believe that Kanaya's feelings are firmly red, but despite what it may seem on the surface, human romance isn't really a one to one equivalent of your matespritship. I believe there may be some minor incompatibilities between my feelings for Kanaya, and hers for me. I thought the book might help me gain some perspective."

"Oh," says Karkat. That's... that's way too close to home, so he steers hard to avert the whole thing. "Do you like it?"

Rose laughs. "You certainly weren't lying when you said that it was trashy."

"Shut the fuck up," he retorts, his face heating irrationally. "If you don't want to read it, you can always just fucking put it down instead of climbing up on your fucking ablutionpatty box and making out like you're better than it!"

"Karkat," she says, very reasonably, "I _like_ trashy. I'm actually quite enjoying it."

"You couldn't have just fucking _said_ that?" He feels stupid. He _hates_ feeling stupid. He can feel Rose laughing at him, and it makes his insides curl up into raging balls. He waits for her to throw another little dig at him. When she does, he's going to let her have it.

But the strangest thing happens. She studies him silently for a moment, and then taps the cover of the book. "I'm especially enjoying the relationship between the two males," she says. "The initial romance between the lowbloods was all a bit saccharine for my taste. I prefer more sparks and fur flying in my meet cute. And initially, I thought that the two males were too far in the other direction. All pure burning hatred punctuated by culturally unrelatable sex scenes. Though I'll admit, the one on the Highblood's battleship was _something_. "

"I fucking warned you it was trashy!" Does she have to be so open about it? You're supposed to side eye and pretend that the concupiscent scenes happen in an alternate reality that no one in the real world can acknowledge, much less discuss. Dammit, Lalonde.

"But when they started... vacillating, I guess? Though I'd define it differently from a human perspective, it _is_ an Alternian novel. But I actually found myself quite taken in by the whole thing. Their connection isn't built purely on animosity or their violent past. They struggle with genuine feelings for one another despite one thinking the other beneath him, and the other despising what the other stands for. Their flipping into flushed quadrants had me riveted."

Karkat can't help it. He pads over and drops beside her on the couch, trying to seem casual about it. "But what about the lowblood pair?" he points out. "They were flushed for one another, first."

Rose blows out a stream of air and her bangs dance. "It doesn't matter who did it first. it matters who did it _better_. Desgon and Verenn's matespritship is just _richer_. The lowblood romance is so comparatively bland."

"Have you gotten to where they start vacillating, too?"

"Yes. Zeteri just left welts on Verenn's back and stormed out wearing the sheet from their platform." Rose shakes her head. "But it lacks the same... _substance_. The black feelings between the lowbloods just seem to be born out of Zeteri's jealousy! It's a less interesting story. It doesn't add texture to their relationship. It just adds a barrier to their _matespritship._ "

"But that's how it _should_ be!" Karkat protests, and suddenly it seems extremely important to make Rose see, as if explaining this to her properly can somehow genetically impart the wisdom through the invisible lines of human DNA to the person he _really_ wants to be having this conversation with. "The highbloods complicate the relationship between the protagonists, and it's all fucking amazing _drama_ , but in the end, everyone needs to decide on a quadrant and stick to it! That's the point of a good romance. It's _wish fulfillment_! Everybody ends up with all their quadrants nicely squared away."

He's said too much. Revealed too much. And Rose is too smart for her own good. This is the part where she shows how much she's picked up from Kanaya. She'll lean over, blink those big highblood-coloured eyes at him, and ask if there's anything he wants to talk about.

But she doesn't do any of that.

Instead, she sighs and looks mournfully down at the cover. She runs her finger a little too suggestively over Desgon's backside. "Does this mean that Desgon and Verenn go back to being plain old kismesises?"

And she sounds so honestly, deeply _upset_ about it that Karkat actually cracks a smile.

"I keep telling you that book is a piece of rancid fucking garbage," he says. "Do you want to see some of my better ones when you're finished?"

"Oh," Rose says, lighting up, "yes, please."

*

TT: I just finished the newest one.  
CG: WHAT THE FUCK? I JUST GAVE IT TO YOU AT LUNCH.  
TT: Yes, well, I found this one extremely compelling.  
CG: YOU'RE CHEWING THROUGH MY ENTIRE FUCKING COLLECTION. I ONLY HAD SO MANY OF THOSE THINGS CAPTCHALOGUED BEFORE LOSING MY HIVE.  
TT: Should I be offering an apology?  
CG: UGH.  
CG: NO.  
CG: WHAT DID YOU THINK?  
TT: Well, let's address the elephant in the room, first and foremost.  
CG: WHY IS THERE A TRUNKBEAST?  
TT: I really feel you're adapting more slowly to English idioms than you should be, Karkat.  
TT: But this isn't the moment to further your education.  
TT: You said that you thought this would finally be the book where I was rooting for the same pair that you were.  
CG: YES.  
TT: All right.  
TT: Well.  
TT: I was definitely most fascinated by Terryn and Aiseis. This was the first book you've lent me where I felt I really grasped the concept of pale relationships. When Terryn flipped red on her, I understood how blurred the line can be between the two forms of redrom. But I also understood what he was giving up. A friendship as intense as what he and Aiseis shared, and it could all go up in smoke, perhaps permanently, if she accepted his flushed suit.  
CG: OH MY GOD.  
CG: DO YOU NEVER LEARN?  
TT: I take it I got it wrong, again?  
CG: OH. HAHAHAHA. NO, I HAD YOU PEGGED DOWN THIS TIME, LALONDE.   
TT: Phrasing.  
CG: SHUT UP AND STOP HANGING AROUND WITH KANAYA.  
CG: TERRYN AND AISEIS ARE ACTUALLY ONE OF MY FAVOURITE COUPLES FROM ANY BOOK I'VE READ. I ACTUALLY THINK THAT YOU ACCURATELY PINNED DOWN WHY FOR THE MOST PART. THEIR PALE RELATIONSHIP IS EVERYTHING THAT A TROLL COULD EVER DREAM OF HAVING. TERRYN KNOWS EXACTLY HOW TO PACIFY AISEIS, AND HE CAN ALWAYS RELY ON HER FOR AFFECTION AND SUPPORT AND LOVE.  
CG: BUT CONCUPISCENT RELATIONSHIPS ARE SO MUCH MORE INTENSE, EMOTIONALLY, THAT EVEN THE BEST MOIRALLEIGENCE CAN GET PULLED INTO THE UNDERTOW OF THOSE FEELINGS.  
CG: ULTIMATELY, EVEN THOUGH TERRYN AND AISEIS END UP HAPPY AS MATESPRITS, I ALMOST THINK THIS BOOK IS KIND OF TRAGIC?  
CG: THEIR MATESPRITSHIP IS FULFILLING, BUT IT ISN'T THE ONCE IN A LIFETIME PERFECT MATCH THAT THEIR PALE RELATIONSHIP WAS. AND IT ISN'T EASY TO WALK BACK TO PALE AFTER YOU'VE GONE FULLY RED.  
CG: THEY'LL NEVER HAVE WHAT THEY HAD BACK.  
CG: IT'S REALLY SAD IF YOU LET YOURSELF THINK ABOUT IT.  
CG: AT LEAST I THINK IT IS.  
TT: Are you finished?  
CG: FUCK YOU!  
TT: No, I didn't mean it like that.  
TT: For once, we're in full agreement. Even with my own cultural baggage, I think I got the same thing out of the book that you did.  
TT: It's actually not an uncommon dynamic in human romances.  
CG: IT'S NOT?  
CG: WAIT, HOW THE FUCK DOES THAT WORK?  
TT: Now might be the moment to ask why you asked me if I never learn?  
CG: OH.  
CG: UGH.  
CG: FORGET IT, IT JUST SLIPPED OUT.  
TT: It's because I called their moiralleigence a "friendship," isn't it?  
CG: LIKE I SAID, CAN WE JUST FORGET IT? I SAY DUMB SHIT SOMETIMES. I KNOW YOU'RE USED TO IT, BECAUSE OF YOUR DUMB FUCKING HIPSTER HUMAN "BROTHER."  
TT: Mn.  
CG: HOW ABOUT YOU JUST DON'T.  
TT: I wasn't going to.  
TT: If I start interrogating you about your personal life, who will I have to discuss books with?  
TT: That said, I did notice something different about this book compared to some others you leant me. Other than the fact that we finally agreed on what the most interesting relationship dynamic was.  
TT: It's presenting me with the opportunity to offer you a gift I've been working on.  
CG: ... A GIFT?  
CG: WHAT THE FUCK?  
TT: Don't worry, it's an incredibly selfishly motivated gift.  
CG: OH THANK GOG.  
TT: Can you meet me in the common room?

* 

Rose is waiting for him holding a gigantic book to her chest. At first, Karkat thinks that it's the one he lent her, but it seems way too thick for that. It's only when she holds it out to him that he recognizes her handwriting on the cover. Half of it is in her human language, which he can't read, but the other is in Alternian. 

_Tempted by a Rake in Moonlight,_ it says. _By Carlotta Black. Translated by Rose Lalonde._

He looks at her suspiciously. "What possible temptation could a lawnfork provide?" 

She snorts. It's very unladylike, not at all elegant, and he thinks that maybe she's starting to act a little less... _poised_ around him. He likes it better. "Rake. As in, a rogue with a scandalous reputation. I checked and made sure that the term existed in Alternian. Kanaya _assured_ me that it did." 

Well, it _does_ sound like the sort of thing that Kanaya would like. He isn't sure that Rose Lalonde _isn't_ a rake. 

"Okay, but... what am I actually looking at?" 

Rose heaves a long-suffering sigh. "As it turns out," she says, "I may or may not have _also _captchalogued as many as my favourite books as possible before my failed suicide mission. I'm honestly not sure what possessed me. Perhaps some strange insight of my aspect inspired me to rescue some literary dreck from a dead civilization." She holds the book out further to him. "I translated one into Alternian for you."__

__Karkat stares at it as if it might bite. It doesn't bite. So he reaches out and takes it. "Why?"_ _

__Rose raises one blonde eyebrow. "Well, the most obvious answer is that it's because I have reason to believe you want to understand human romance for the same reasons I want to understand troll romance."_ _

__Karkat feels his eyebrows draw down and he opens his mouth to start a fight, but --_ _

__"However, the honest truth is that I like this novel. I think you might like it, too. And before I met you and Kanaya, I've never had anyone to actually discuss books with before."_ _

__*_ _

____ CG: I FINISHED YOUR GARBAGE BOOK.  
CG: WOW.  
CG: TO THINK THAT I THOUGHT I WAS OFFERING A PUBLIC SERVICE WHEN I WARNED THE FIRST ONE I LEANT YOU WAS TRASHY.  
CG: YOU COULDN'T EXTEND THE COURTESY OF OFFERING THE SAME FUCKING SERVICE NOW COULD YOU.  
CG: I'VE NEVER READ ANYTHING MORE SAPPY AND INSUFFERABLE AND LESS DESERVING OF ANY DEBATE OF ITS ARTISTIC MERITS.  
TT: Hello, Karkat.  
CG: DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW OLD THAT IS AT THIS POINT?  
TT: Did you like it?  
CG: I HATE YOU AND I HATE MYSELF.  
CG: BECAUSE.  
CG: YES, I LIKED IT.  
TT: That's good to hear. I did spend quite a long time working on it.  
CG: THAT'S NOT TO SAY I DON'T HAVE SOME ISSUES.  
TT: I couldn't possibly imagine a scenario where you didn't.  
CG: FUCK YOU.  
CG: FOR INSTANCE, IT SEEMED WEIRD TO ME THAT ISABELLA DIDN'T ENTER INTO A CALIGINOUS FLING WITH THE BANKER WHO WANTED TO MARRY HER FOR HER ESTATE. THEY SEEMED TO POSSESS SOME REAL BLACK CHEMISTRY AND IT WOULDN'T HAVE CONFLICTED WITH HER BUDDING MATESPRITSHIP WITH JASPER.  
TT: I believe it was mostly likely related to the fact that she's a 19th century human female who will die a century before anyone who'll ever meet a troll was even born.  
CG: HARDY HAR HAR.  
TT: It's only a theory, however.  
CG: THERE'S ALSO THE MATTER OF THIS FRUSTRATING HUMAN HANGUP WITH "HETEROSEXUALITY" THAT DAVE IS ALWAYS GOING ON AND FUCKING ON ABOUT.  
TT: I agree, in all honesty. Much like my esteemed twin brother, the society we came from was extremely hung up on that construct.  
TT: But aside from those things?  
CG: I ALREADY SAID I LIKED IT.  
TT: Hm.  
CG: WHY ARE YOU HMING?  
TT: Is that all you have to say?  
TT: I feel like I've given you more, when we talk about the books I've borrowed from you.  
CG: MAYBE I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT TO FUCKING SAY!  
TT: Well, to start with... how did you feel about Jasper and Isabella's transition from friends in their youth to lovers when they met again later in life?  
CG: IF YOU'RE TRYING TO COMPARE IT TO MOIRALLEGIANCE... I GUESS I SEE THE SIMILARITIES?  
CG: THEY WERE NEVER FULLY MOIRAILS, BUT THERE WERE ENOUGH BLURRED LINES THAT IT PERFORMED AS A FLIP FROM PALE TO RED FOR THE PURPOSE OF STORYTELLING STRUCTURE.  
TT: And what about the scene after the misunderstanding at the opera house?  
CG: I'M ACTUALLY STILL NOT FUCKING SURE WHAT THE HELL AN OPERA IS.  
TT: The scene in the carriage, where Isabella slaps Jasper and tells him that she never wants to see him again, and then, moments later, she finds herself locked in a wild and savage embrace with him is one of my favourite erotic scenes from a romance novel.  
TT: There was always something about it that struck me as so raw and real and intense.  
TT: In that moment, all the trappings of society and polite behavior were gone, leaving nothing but pure animal instinct.  
TT: It left me breathless when I first read it.  
TT: I was twelve.  
TT: I consider it something of a sexual awakening for me.  
CG: THIS IS A REALLY FUCKING UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATION FOR US TO BE HAVING ROSE.  
TT: Of course, I wasn't so impressed by what Jasper had in his breeches, but I imagine that wasn't a problem for you?  
CG: OH MY FUCK. CAN WE NOT BE HAVING THIS CONVERSATION? CAN THESE WORDS NOT BE SCROLLING ACROSS MY SCREEN? CAN THIS NIGHTMARE EVER END? AM I TRAPPED HERE IN THIS MOMENT?  
TT: One has to wonder how you and Dave get anything done.  
CG: I'M LOGGING THE FUCK OFF RIGHT NOW.  
TT: Karkat.  
TT: What did you think of that scene?  
CG: UGH.  
CG: IT  
CG: I DON'T KNOW.  
TT: There isn't a wrong answer.  
CG: YOU TRICKED ME INTO READING THIS BOOK AND HAVING THIS CONVERSATION.  
TT: Maybe.  
TT: Honestly, I really did want to just talk about the book.  
TT: But it occurred to me that I could also, perhaps, help you?  
TT: You don't have to talk about it if you don't want.  
TT: But I think that maybe you should.  
CG: IT MADE ME REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE, OKAY?  
CG: IT ISN'T RIGHT.  
CG: THEY WERE CLEARLY FLUTTERING AT THE VERY EDGE OF A VACILLATION. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FINE IF THEY ACTUALLY FLIPPED, BUT THEY JUST KEPT STRADDLING RED AND BLACK WITH NO CONCERN FOR HOW MANY LINES THEY WERE BLURRING OR WHAT THE CONSEQUENCES COULD BE!  
CG: WHAT IF THE DRONES HAD APPEARED JUST THEN? WHAT BUCKET WOULD THEY FILL? THE DRONES WOULD KNOW THAT THE MATERIAL WASN'T VIABLE FOR EITHER BUCKET, AND THEY WOULD BE CULLED.  
TT: Except that they were in Victorian London, and there were no drones and no buckets and no culling.  
TT: Which is, coincidentally, a state of being shared with absolutely the entire multiverse right now.  
TT: Alternia is gone. Drones and buckets included.  
CG: IT'S NOT THAT SIMPLE.  
CG: THAT'S JUST NOT HOW THINGS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE.  
TT: They seemed happy with it.  
CG: WELL, THEY'RE HUMAN.  
TT: That is certainly true.  
CG: ...  
CG: I LIKED THE SCENE WHERE THEY PLAYED IN THE FLUFFY FROZEN RAIN. THE SNOW. WHEN THEY RODE THE PLANE DOWN THE HILL, IT WAS A REALLY EFFECTIVE CALLBACK TO WHEN THEY WERE YOUNG TOGETHER.  
CG: IT REALLY FELT LIKE ALL THE YEARS MELTED AWAY. AFTER WHAT HAPPENED TO JASPER, HE'D JUST BUILT UP SO MUCH PROTECTIVE ARMOUR TO KEEP HIMSELF FROM GETTING HURT AGAIN.  
CG: IT WAS REALLY SATISFYING SEEING JASPER SHED THE LAYERS OF HIS SCANDALOUS PERSONA AND REVEAL THE PERSON HE STILL WAS UNDER ALL OF IT.  
TT: Well.  
TT: Mission accomplished.  
CG: WHAT MISSION?  
CG: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?  
TT: My primary goal in this translation project was to make you say the word "scandalous."  
TT: I'm fully satisfied.  
CG: WE'RE FUCKING DONE HERE.

__*_ _

__The next day, Karkat gives Rose back her notebook with its delicate, printing press quality Alternian handwriting. He's flushing when he does so and tries not to make eye contact. She accepts it without a word._ _

__"Uh," he says, and then, whatever, fuck it. He gets the book out of his sylladex and hands it to her. Not one of his favourites, but he's running out and the ones that made the cut into his personal library were all pretty top tier. "I got another one for you, if you're still interested in talking about books."_ _

__"I am," she says, accepting it with a smile. It's sincere, he thinks. Not affected. So there's that._ _

__He goes to leave, trying really hard not to blush or just lash out over something stupid to get this pent up energy out of his head, when Rose says, "actually."_ _

__He stops._ _

__"I translated another of my own collection for you. If you're interested?"_ _

__It's an offer he knows he can refuse. It's all over the way she says it. But he thinks about the way he feels when he's with Dave, and the way Jasper and Isabella acted together, and he runs a hand through his mess of hair. "Uh, sure," he says. "I'm always up for talking about more books."_ _


End file.
